Having Captions in Educational Videos Improves Students' Performance

Introduction of captions in educational videos dramatically enhanced students' test scores and comprehension, according to University researchers.

Video captions in educational videos make a big difference for students with hearing disabilities and those who suffer from learning disorders. But researchers at San Francisco State University claim that video captions are helpful to all students. The current study shows how students' test scores and comprehensions improved when captions were introduced in videos.

The study led by Robert Keith Collins, as assistant professor of American Indian studies, came up with this novel idea while brain storming on ways to make classrooms more accessible to students. In the two-year case study,  researcher showed the students videos without captions in the first year. He did this to set a baseline of student comprehension. After achieving that baseline, he introduced captions in the educational videos and noticed a dramatic improvement.

"Not only were students talking about how much having the captions helped them as they took notes, their test scores went up," Collins said in a statement. "During the baseline year, there was a lot of Cs. In the second years, they went from Cs, Ds and Fs to As, Bs and Cs. It was really significant improvement."

Having captions in videos not just had a good impact on the student's grade but also made classroom discussions livelier and more detailed, as the students were able to recall particular information especially when it came to names of places and people.

"We're living in an age where our students are so distracted by technology that they sometimes forget where they should focus their attention when engaged with technology or media. Turning on captions seems to enable students to focus on specific information," Collins explains.

This study opposes previous findings that said captions were useful only for students with learning disabilities. As Collins says, all the students witness an improvement in their performance when captions are turned on in videos.

This study "Using Captions to Reduce Barriers to Native American Student Success", was published in the American Indian Culture and Research Journal.